I've got a tip for you that you should jump on if you can, Most people never change the gear oil in these five speeds, they are a great transmission, if you just lube em up right, I put the Red line MTL gear oil in mine and worked amazingly well, if you dont at least change out and renew the ATF they will fail, usually the 5 th gear to reverse shaft goes, and also put the red line 80 90 gear oil in the differential , that one mod or up date made the biggest change i ever had in any car in terms of low speed noticable diffference, it figures because the friction in a rear dif, is mostly sliding friction , big gears going fast , lots of drag, rolling friction is never even near as much , Summit racing has it for a pretty fair price, , i had also a 98 Ranger with the 2.5 and I noticed they upped the size of the exhaust and muffler quite a bit, got better milage too , than my 88 2.3 . other than that good job so far and probably swap out the O 2 sensor , there pretty cheap on Ebay now, picked up a few MPG right there, My 88 2.3 has 3 76 K miles on it, when I rebuilt the motor at 300 K the only thig wrong was the head gasket, originall good bore and even the valve guides, just change the oil whenever it looks a bit dirty say 3 k miles and only synthetic wal mart brand is pretty good, proof with the wear i saw, almost none, good luck

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Looks good, Mech! I can't find the link to it right now, but aerohead had a thread w/ photos of the rear of his truck. Looked like he extended back from just to the inside of the rear tail-lights and then had an extra set of lights on the back, too.

I've wondered a lot about how the underbody would best be done on a truck. There's so much movement in the rear axle, a belly-pan would have to be really low. Are you planning on doing anything to the underbody aside from the blocks around the wheels?

I wonder about this: In my '98 Subaru, somebody put the wrong lube in the transmission (5 speed stick) and it wouldn't shift well when I got it. I had the lube replaced with the right stuff and now it's all better. The problem is that the synchros require a certain weight and amount of friction to work right. If you put in something slipperier, they hold you out of gear.

I don't know if this is just Subaru's, or if other transmission makes will have similar issues.

A few months ago my truck was starting to consistently grind on first gear (and maybe another, don't recall now). I changed the oil, and it stopped grinding, so the oil made a difference for synchros. Now it's having a hard time going into fifth. It's not bad, but I picked up the parts the other day to replace the bushings around the stick, in case that's the prob, and I'd be open to putting in a better trans oil if there's something recommended....

There was a thread a while back where someone was claiming that we could run a particular synthetic motor oil in the diff and trans and see some significant mileage gains, as well as not harming the trans. Hmm...

The trans and diff fluids are on the menu for within the next week. At 125 k the tranny downshifts fine even at speeds much higher than I would ever downshift. The problem I have is 1st to 2nd, it's hard to get it in gear, but I found if I just rev it up a little higher in 1st it works much better. I always go through the fluids in a new purchase, since they are often soo neglected. Changed to oil to 5W20 conventional for now, to see how it does on consumption, probably won't use any in 3 k miles or even longer.

a8ksh4;
I saw aeroheads rear end setup on that thread. I don't think I want to go beyond the 3 foot limit, but then I might just put a red rear cap on it if I decide to go beyond 3 feet. The member with the 04 Ranger in the link Metro posted with his mileage log was very interesting. It did seem like his tank to tank mileage figures varied quite a lot. Mine seem to be much more stable, with very little variations between tanks unless the driving conditions change considerably.

When I took the blower motor out today, I pulled the rubber hose off the brush section of the motor and used my leaf blower to blast the dust from the brushes out of the armature. The brushes had a lot of material left and everything look great, except for the rubber grommet that was inside the squirrel cage stuck between the blades and making the whole unit seriously out of balance. Probably dropped in there at the assembly line since the cowl vent has some of the smallest holes in it I have ever seen on any car or truck. Wiper linkage access panels because you can not remove the cowl top.

I'll probably top the tank off on the way home tomorrow.

regards
Mech

Last edited by Old Mechanic; 12-09-2012 at 09:42 PM..

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Accidentally discovered a well known fact today , I was cruising on the highway at 55 with Ol' Trusty the 88 ranger when all of a sudden it got much easier to pick up speed , someone with a new honda crosstour was tailgating me trying to hypermile i guess since she could have passed , thus improving my aero dynamics, after a while she got bored trying to urge me faster, and passed, darn I loved that honda boattail! actually I find a lot of ladies tailgate, i guess they figure they cant get nabbed speeding, cause when they do pass they hurry on ahead and follow someone else, seems that way anyway,

back in the seventies Dodge 4 speeds used 30 motor oil, I've used both ATF and 80 80 in my trans, its so worn out now at almost 400 K that it needs the thick stuf, should have changed it when I got it, back in 97 , trouble is most people just check the level and leave it if it's full but ATF especially wears out lubrication wise.

I was going to fill it yesterday but the cars were 3 deep at Wal Mart at the gas pumps for the $2.97 a gallon gas. I finished putting the windshield adhesive on today, so the truck will be sitting for the next two days. It was still over 1/2 tank with 230 miles on the tank.

I thought I remebered the old Mopars in the 70s used ATF in the transmissions, at least the Valiants (had 5 of them). I would like to see 35 MPG on this tank but I think the winter blend is here and the high temps are in the low 50s compared to closer to 70-80 when I first got the truck on the road. Next, I'll get fresh fluid in the trans and diff, then make the cap so it can lift up on the left side.

I don't know if this is just Subaru's, or if other transmission makes will have similar issues.

A friend of mine had a Scion xB second gen which started to develop transmission issues. He found out the last shop had put in GM trans lube instead of Toyota stuff. Replaced it and I think things stopped getting worse but the damage was done. He replaced it with a 4Runner.

Moral of the story is, it's fine to change out motor oil brands but keep the trans fluid factory correct.